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Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 12:03

If something doesn’t look right … that’s because it isn’t. Many of you may be having trouble accessing The AIMN, but if you did, you will have noticed that it looks different or has content missing. There’s a simple explanation: we’re migrating the site to a larger server, and Murphy’s Law dictates that such things…

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Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 11:30
As it turns out most Americans don’t care all thatm uch about abortion rights after all. And that means they don’t care all that much aboutwhether some women lose their health or their lives for lack of ability to obtain one. I wish I could say that shocks me, but it doesn’t. When the price of eggs is higher than it was four years ago nothing else really matters. Here’s how it’s going in the courts: The case now before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, centers on whether federal emergency room mandates — enshrined in EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act — preempt state abortion bans when they conflict. EMTALA requires that emergency rooms stabilize patients in crisis. Idaho maintains that they don’t overlap, that the ban’s exception for preventing the woman’s death covers all emergencies.
Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 10:00
Instead of making Trump fire him, Christopher Wray let Trump off the hook and has politely bowed out and resigned today. This is not how this is supposed to work. The whole idea of the year term was to keep the FBI director out of partisan politics while not allowing him to create a J. Edgar Hoover-style fiefdom of its own. As with so much else, Trump cares nothing about intentions, traditions or norms and the fact is that he has the power to fire him so there was never any doubt that he would do it. Everyone in America exists to serve him. Here’s the usual classy response from Trump:
Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 08:30
Paul Krugman’s quit his NY Times column and although he hasn’t said it in so many words, it’s most likely because he felt constrained from saying what he wants to say the way he wants to say it. He does have a newsletter and he’s already bringing the fire: Once upon a time a Republican president, sure that large parts of federal spending were worthless, appointed a commission led by a wealthy businessman to bring a business sensibility to the budget, going through it line by line to identify inefficiency and waste. The commission initially made a big splash, and there were desperate attempts to spin its work as a success. But in the end few people were fooled. Ronald Reagan’s venture, the President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control — the so-called “Grace commission,” headed by J. Peter Grace — was a flop, making no visible dent in spending. Why was it a flop? There is, of course, inefficiency and waste in the federal government, as there is in any large organization.
Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 07:00
Some of them agree wholeheartedly that their Democratic colleagues should be put in jail. The Bulwark reports: “With politicians, if you’ve used a congressional committee and you’ve lied and tried to set people up and falsely imprisoned people, then you should be held accountable,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told The Bulwark. “If they broke the law, then they should [be imprisoned],” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.). “Now we know that they’ve manipulated evidence, so—if that’s the case, then absolutely.” “It’s not looking good for them,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). “You know, they’re asking for their preemptive pardon. So it kind of sounds suspect and guilty. I think anybody who has politically imprisoned American citizens and completely ruined their lives needs to be investigated.” I don’t know wtf Boebert is babling about — nobody in congress has “politically imprisoned American citizens and completely ruined their lives.” But she’s extremely stupid so who knows what’s in her head?
Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 05:30
Why? Because he believes the CIA was involved in JFK’s assassination. Of course he does: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes the CIA had a role in assassinating his uncle, President John F. Kennedy — part of RFK Jr.’s motivation for pushing his daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, for deputy CIA director, Axios has learned. According to Axios, that request is causing a great deal of “drama” but no details.  If Fox Kennedy were named deputy to John Ratcliffe, Trump’s pick for CIA director, she’d be in a position to dig into what the CIA knows about the assassination — and potentially could urge the release of documents. Podcaster Joe Rogan and others have been agitating for that. “The evidence is overwhelming that the CIA was involved in the murder and in the cover-up,” Kennedy said about his uncle’s death in a podcast in May of last year. He also said that there is “convincing” but “circumstantial” evidence that the CIA was involved in his father’s death, as well.
Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 05:00

I choose optimism.

Yes, they want to dismantle the DOE, increase censorship, and take money from already underfunded public schools to give to private schools, but maybe they’re too incompetent to accomplish all that right away. Maybe the wrestling lady will only last one or two Scaramuccis. Maybe they’ll get sidetracked arguing about whether adjectives should be banned along with pronouns. Maybe my school can pretend to be the British kind of “public school” where “public” means “private.” Anything is possible.

I have lots to be grateful for.

When I feel overwhelmed by how many papers I need to grade, I will see it as a sign that I love my job. Instead of complaining, I will savor the papers and hold them tight—my precious, precious student papers.

Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 04:58
My heart is breaking over Syria, and it was already broken over Gaza. I watch the television reports of the ‘joy’ in Damascus and wonder what alternative planet the mainstream media inhabits. The head-chopping salafists of yesterday are today’s ‘rebels’ against a brutal dictator and the ‘liberators’ of the long suffering Syrian people. I watch Continue reading »